She felt agitated. She’d wake up nearly unable to move. Hearing vanished from one ear. Her muscles cramped and her speech slurred....

For 15 years, Genser had been grinding up mussel shells to create a sculpture of Adam, the first man... By using a natural material, like mussel shells, to depict a biblical character, she wanted to comment on humanity’s skewed relationship with the now-contaminated natural world.

But the shells contained lead and arsenic from the polluted environment, and she was inhaling the dust. It's very sad that this woman got poisoned, but I don't think inhaling shell dust is ever a good idea. She was working 12 hours a day for years grinding shells with a dentist's drill, and I'm not seeing that she used any sort of respirator or dust-protection mask. And some of her description of the intention of the artwork seems like an after-the-fact grasping at greater meaning:

“The work was an environmental statement. It’s about reconsidering what people’s first perception of the ecosystem should have been, rather than this idea that we have dominion over all the animals,” she said. “So it’s very interesting and ironic that Adam, as the first man, was so toxic. He poisoned me. Doesn’t that make sense, because we poisoned the world starting with this very poor notion?"

But what isn't an after-after-the-fact grasping at greater meaning? Why are we talking about "Adam" in the first place?

ALSO: What sort of doctors accept the idea of "natural materials" as a good enough answer? There are many toxins and allergens in nature!

There's a lot here that doesn't make sense. 15 years to make a single sculpture? Using a dentist's drill instead of a spice grinder or even a mortar and pestle? Breathing all that dust and not connecting it to feeling lousy? Her doctor accepting the "natural materials" answer--every doctor (virtually every person) knows that nature is full of things that will kill you.

Wow making a point on the environment by killing and grinding up the mussel. Poor Mussels? I hope she ate them too or death was meaningless. Was the meat poison too? Or just harvesting Shells like Buffalo skins?

I was so certain that these mussels, which the government said I could eat safely and buy in the market as food, could never be bad for me."

I'm not entirely sure that if the government tells you it's okay to Eat Mussels, that means that they mean it's okay to be grinding up mussel shells and inhaling the dust.

Let's see (off the top of my head)Does the government tell you it's okay to eat raw pork?Does the government tell you it's okay to gather a handful of apple seeds, and eat them?Does the government tell you it's okay to buy a bag of flour, put it into your vacuum cleaner, turn the blower around; and spray flour all through your closed living room, with a fire in the fireplace?

{bonus points to anyone try to make a dust explosion WHILE chewing cyanide apple seeds}

If the shells contained toxic chemicals, one can assume the mussels did too.

Everything contains toxic chemicals. The relevant question is if the meat contains harmful levels of those toxic chemicals. And there is no reason to assume that the meat contains harmful levels just because the shell does. Different chemicals end up concentrated in different parts of the mussel.

back in the '80's, when we had excuses* for being stupid, I knew a girl at Iowa State; that walked the roadways looking for roadkill, so she could use the skins to make sculptures. She ended up dying of some parasitic infection.

As of 1980 or so, there was only ONE molecule that couldn't be found in nature. That was PCB. We synthesize many molecules in order to provide sufficient quantities for our needs. But they were first discovered in nature.

As for the doctors, why indeed did they not ask for a list of the 'natural materials' she was using? Is it true she was visiting the doctor because she was ill, had symptoms that indicated poisoning of some sort? May not add up to malpractice but surely indicates incompetence.

Maybe she really, really liked the sound of a dentist's drill? I mean 'REALLY' liked it. That shudder that a lot of people get when listening to the high-pitched whine may have been something completely different and very enjoyable for her. (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.)

That's about the only thing I can imagine that would make me want to listen to one for 15 years of 'artistic creation'.

Adam was a real person. The genealogy of Jesus traces through him in Luke. Adam also is an allegorical figure. Paul calls him “The first man Adam” which he parallels to “the last Adam,” that is Christ.

Last week Althouse introduced us to the word Euhemerism, the idea that mythological events and characters are rooted in reality. Adam of the Bible is Exhibit A.

I love those old youtube videos showing car manufacturing. The painters used no protection. There's one about the first Corvette and six guys are laying glass with no protection, and dressed like milk men.

Back then people were expected to be dead before social security eligibility.

Everyone has already noted that nature is rife with natural killers. Dr's would/should delve deeper on follow up questions. Much like the handyman that works with wood, a Dr would ask about exposure and the use of personal protective gear. Artist, by their nature, would have the potential to find toxins in their wide ranging choice of medium. I would think a cursory physical with a look eye,ears, nose and throat. Lung Xrays, blood work looking for heavy metals, etc.

As to eating vs inhaling toxins, inhalation ranks up toward the top of paths of entry into the body, for toxins. Dermal is pretty low, but I always wear gloves, putting stuff in your mouth is obvious. Making the ASSUMPTION that the govt would surly tell me if something is dangerous, displaces personal responsibility, for the govt. Not wise.

At the risk of sounding like a sceptic, I seriously doubt that the amount of lead and arsenic in mussel shells is high enough to cause damage to anyone's health. I'm too busy to look it up now, but I'm guessing it's in the parts per billion range.

People like to find causes for things. Several years ago, there were three cases of children with brain cancer in our community of 50,000. The usual suspects went totally nuts looking for the "cause" that they were sure was there. They needed someone or something to blame. My otherwise sensible wife was one of the believers. They made so much of an issue of it that the state health department finally was forced to do a study. Their conclusion? Statistics. There was no identifiable cause, other than the fact that there is some small statistical chance that in a community of 50,000 people, three children would get brain cancer.

My wife remains unconvinced to this day. She likes to find reasons for things. I love her anyway.

Adam was a real person. The genealogy of Jesus traces through him in Lukeas Jupiter (or, as i like to call him: Zeus) reminded me yesterdayAccording to Robert Graves (who was a Poet!), those hebrew men that lived for hundreds of years make MUCH MORE SENSE as dynasties not individual people.

I made the same mistake at first, before I read the article and looked at the photo. It's clear from it that she's not grinding up the shells and them making the sculptures from some kind of composite with the dust--as if it were plaster of paris or something. There are plenty of mostly-intact shells in the photo and I presume she's just doing some grinding to get things to fit, etc.

Now, an ordinary person might use a Dremel tool for this, but being an artist she needs something more notable like a dentist's drill?

For some period of time, a booming business out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama was the export of mussel shells to Asia/ The South Pacific. Bits of shells were used to seed oysters for cultured pearl farms. These days plastic bits are used. The health data on the workers breaking up the shells would be of interest.

In their way, yes. Certainly, they're great architectural and engineering achievements, which are considered art even today. They are humankind's handiworks. (This doesn't mean they didn't serve practical purposes when they were built.)